


Pizza Not Quite Right?  Call 555-4ZA-MEND.

by temvald



Category: Pizza Repairman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 11:00:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temvald/pseuds/temvald





	Pizza Not Quite Right?  Call 555-4ZA-MEND.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marginaliana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/gifts).



The first time I called for Pizza Repairman was on Super Bowl Sunday.

I don't know what made me think that ordering pizza from the campus pizza place during the Super Bowl was a good idea. Usually I plan out what food and snacks I'll have for a Super Bowl party a long time in advance, but that year I was too excited about my Jets making it to the big game. So maybe I was a little bit distracted, and when the day came, I realized that there wasn't going to be enough food. In a mild panic, I ordered six pizzas.

By the time the pizzas showed it was past halftime and we were starving. The delivery boy was unimpressed with the snide comment that I gave him for being so late. "We're busy--it's the Super Bowl. I got three more deliveries after you."

When we opened up the boxes I almost went outside to chase him down. You could tell just looking at them that the pizzas were going to be terrible. They looked like burned cardboard disks. There was something resembling cheese on top, maybe, if you squinted and looked at it sideways. The toppings, such as they were, were all over the place, even though I don't remember having ordered any of them with left beef.

It was a disaster. I couldn't ask my friends to eat this. I'd try to sneak out and go home, but it was my place. I'd just have to change my name and leave the state.

Then I looked down at the card that someone had put in my bag the other day on the bus. "What the hell," I thought, and called the Pizza Repairman.

He showed up before the fourth quarter had started. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this--he was well-built, with a confident smile and the slightest scent of basil. I just stared at him for a moment, until he asked, "Did you have a problem with a pizza?"

I let him in and pointed him to the kitchen. The boxes were sitting on the table. Despite my warnings, each one of my friends there had opened up a box, hoping that I was exaggerating about the inedible state of the pies. Not one of them had taken a slice.

Pizza Repairman looked over them with an expert eye. "I've seen worse. Not many times, but I have." He glanced towards the living room. "Go watch your game. I'll handle this."

I went back to the game and watched for long enough to see what had to be the worst turnover in the history of the Super Bowl. Possibly in the history of football--or the Jets, anyway, which is pretty much the same thing. When they cut to a commercial break I was ready to go get another beer. When I walked into the kitchen, the Pizza Repairman handed me a slice of pizza.

I don't know what he did. It was clearly a slice from the sausage and pepper pizza that I'd ordered, but it was completely different. The crust somehow didn't seem as burned. The sauce had regained its consistency, and the cheese was no longer just a smear of grease. It was like magic.

"How did you...?"

My question was interrupted by his phone buzzing. He looked at it, frowned, and then said, "Sorry, I have another job. Good luck with the game." And with that, he walked out the door.

Of course the Jets lost. But the pizza was good.

* * *

The second time I called Pizza Repairman was during the Eurovision finals. This time it was my fault--I was going with the European thing and found a place that put corn on pizza. I knew it was a mistake the moment it arrived.

The doorbell rang just as Iceland's number (which seemed to have something to do with monstrous individuals who did things like disrupt elves and eat puffins). "What's the trouble this time?"

I explained as I led him to the kitchen. He laughed and started to work on the pizzas.

When he was done the pizza were excellent. If you didn't know it was there you'd never know that corn had ever been near them.

"Hey," he said as he was leaving, "can I ask you two questions?"

"Sure."

"First, this song thing--is Australia really part of Europe?"

"I guess so? I mean, it's Eurovision, and Australia is competing, so that means that Australia has to be be in Europe, right? What's your second question?"

"Do you only order pizza when you have guests over, or do you ever order pizza just for yourself?"

The next Friday my plans fell through, so I ordered a ham and pineapple pizza. I was frustrated, and the crust was too oily. I called for the Pizza Repairman. He made everything better.

The leftover slices were just as good cold when we shared them for breakfast in the morning.

* * *

The next few months were a blur of late-night delivery and Pizza Repairman. Any time I could I would order pizza, and any time that I found something not quite right, I would call Pizza Repairman. He always gave me some extra time with each visit. If it was a busy time it might just be a quickie, a short, lust-and-cheese fueled coupling before he had to go out on another call. If I waited and ordered later in the evening, though, I could usually get him to stay over. On those nights I could savor him, from the time we shared our (now perfect) dinner together until he got called away in the morning for the inevitable college student breakfast slice that had gotten a bit too cold.

It turns out that there are a lot of pizza places that are close enough to deliver to me, and I tried them all. Each one had their own quirks. Kristo's down the street had a weird, chewy, oily crust; Pizza Repairman made its sauce balance it out. Pizza Planet used these huge slabs of sausage, but for me the sausage was just the right size and spread out right where I wanted it. Guido's sauce was too sweet and Four Aces' too salty, but with Pizza Repairman everything I put in my mouth tasted just right.

Sometimes, though, there was more for him to deal with than just the idiosyncrasies of our local pizzarias. Each time, Pizza Repairman handled the challenge with ease. With his magic touch, an extra cheese that had been jostled during delivery once again had the right amounts of sauce and cheese on each piece. My half of a canadian bacon and pepper / pepperoni and olive pie didn't taste of olives at all. The canned mushrooms one new place used tasted like real mushrooms. A medium with onions from Domino's was tolerable.

Maybe after a while I started taking his skills for granted. I started ordering from places just to see what he could do with the pizzas I got. In some cases it was a success, like the time I found a place that offered Detroit-style pizza ("It's got a good flavor for me to work with, so it'll just take a little work to make it look like it wasn't cooked in a hubcap."). Other times, though, he would complain: "Why do you order from this place? Their pizza is barely acceptable even after I fix it. And those chicken things they serve are unconscionable." And some times he would be so insulted that he would refuse to help, usually with a comment like "White pizza is not pizza--it's just flatbread that somebody is trying to trick you into thinking that it's pizza." 

Finally one Friday night I went too far. He showed up with his usual smile, but when he looked at what the Chicago Deep Dish on the table his eyes just went cold. "I. Don't. Do. Casserole." His voice was flat. "I thought you knew. I...I thought you were different." I realized my mistake and started trying to apologize, to say that I'd call another place, get a solid trying-and-failing-to-be-Neapolitan, but he just held up his hand.

"Good luck with your dinner. You'll need it." And he turned around and walked out.

That was the last time I saw him.

* * *

A year or so later, when I finally felt up to ordering something other than Indian or Chinese for dinner, I ended up looking online to see if Pizza Repairman was still around. But his domain just pointed to a squatter, and there weren't any ads or anything that I could find. Some messages on review sites said he'd gone to St. Louis. Others say that he'd gone to the Ohio Valley to try to teach them to cook their pizza--like, not tips on improving spice levels or cheese varieties, but just to cook it at all. Still others said that he'd gone to California, presumably just to get them to stop making pizza altogether. But nobody really knew for sure.

Pizza is back in my general food rotation, though I don't eat it nearly as often as I did when I was younger. And at times I've dated, and at other times I've had hookups. And the pizza is sometimes good, sometimes great, and sometimes just ok, and the sex is sometimes good, sometimes great, and sometimes just ok. And I've learned not to compare each new pizza to the pizzas I've had in the past, but rather to savor each rich, cheesy bite as a new experience to be had.

And I hope that the Pizza Repairman is still out there somewhere, fixing pizzas and making other people's nights a little bit more special.


End file.
